"Prepone" is now in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary

And to think of the number of times I have corrected students using "prepone" when they meant "brought forward" or "advanced"! Now they will throw the book at me.

This nugget of information came from V.R. Narayanaswami's recent column on the English language in Mint, titled "English, made in India".

Here's an excerpt:

Whenever a new edition of an English dictionary is released, people start commenting on the number of new Hindi words that have got into the lexicon. The 11th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary added 80 words from Hindi. “Prepone” has been accepted, and “slumlord” and “jai ho” are more recent candidates for entry.

More interesting to me are English words created in India or reshaped from existing words, and given new meanings. That reveals the versatility and adaptability of English words. After prepone, next in line might be “trifurcate”, which is what chief minister Mayawati wants to do with Uttar Pradesh.

Read the full column here.